‘Biggest Baby Shower’ Targets Smoking

Later this spring, the American Lung Assn.’s Los Angeles chapter again will sponsor the “World’s Biggest Baby Shower” to alert young pregnant women to smoking’s dangers.

“It’s a creative approach,” says Ron Arias of the ALA. “You’re dealing with a very hard-to-reach group. It’s an economic and educational problem more than anything.”

Statistics bear that out: 20% to 40% of all women who become pregnant are smokers and only about 25% stop during pregnancy, experts say. The potential health consequences for these women and their babies are severe:

* According to a 1989 Swedish study, women who smoke during pregnancy increase the risk of a late miscarriage by 40%.

* Smoking while pregnant appears to increase the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. More than 2,500 deaths of infants under the age of 1 could be attributed to smoking by the mother, reports the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

* A pregnant women who smokes two packs a day reduces the oxygen supply to her fetus by 25%, the lung association reports.

According to Dr. Kenneth Kizer of the State Department of Health Services, however, pregnant women who stop smoking early in the pregnancy have a good chance to stay off cigarettes.